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Feb 27 5 apps to help you make cash in your everyday life

1. Ever heard of Swagbucks? The app and website lets you earn free gift cards and cash for the standard things you do literally every day. Whether it’s shopping online, watching funny dog videos, searching the web or filling out surveys, there are so many different ways to earn ‘Swagbucks’. You go from completing these short tasks to earning points and swapping them for cash back or gift cards from retailers like Amazon, M&S and John Lewis.

How can they offer these sort of deals? Well, advertisers pay Swagbucks to do market research on their behalf and can therefore pass on some of this benefit to you. You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours. Users have been known to pocket an extra £25 a month, whilst the company claims to have paid members over £105 million to date, so why not see what all the hype is about.

2. You wake up in the morning, brush your teeth, get ready for work and off you drive for another day of corporate slavery. For the next 10 hours your driveway is sItting there idle and lonely. Why not list it on JustPark and rent out the space for cold hard cash. Some users across London have claimed to earn north of £200 a month. Rent out your driveway whenever it suits, get regular bookings and receive payment straight into your bank account.

The way I like to think about it is, if you can offer me a driveway cheaper that on-street parking and I don’t have to worry about getting slapped with parking ticket or having the correct change for the meter, it’s a no brainer. So why not test the waters to see what demand is like for your space. JustPark have reportedly helped UK property owners make £15m to date so clearly there is a market out there for it. Notably, with new government regulations coming into play in April this year, households will get £1,000 per year of their JustPark income TAX-FREE.

3. Not going to lie, when a friend or family member gives me a gift voucher to HMV, a part of me dies inside. Why did they not buy me the super skinny jeans from Topman that I wanted? Download the app Zeek. Unsurprisingly, the company claims around a third of gift vouchers go unused! You add your gift voucher details, dictate the price you want for it and wait till you are matched with a buyer. Yes, you would be selling your unwanted gift cards and vouchers for less than face value, however, it’s all about keeping it hassle free and pocketing cash for something which otherwise might gather dust. Download the app for free and get Zeeking.

4. Chip is the app that saves you money and makes you money in a smart way. Once you download or for free and give them read-only access to your current account, the fun begins. The brains behind the company calculate what you can afford to save and every few days they transfer small sums of cash automatically to your Chip savings account. You can save more or less than the calculated amount, whilst have access to your savings at any time. How do they make you money? Interest earned is paid quarterly and starts at 1%, however, is boosted to a maximum of 5% depending on how many mates you refer to the app. In a low interest rate environment, this attractive rate of 5% is proving appealing to the millennial market. There are many players popping up in this space and if you enjoy saving and earning in auto pilot, this could be for you!

5. Getting fit isn’t easy and as we all know getting started is the hardest part. However, imagine if you got paid to get started? Take a look at the Gym-Pact app which pays you to stick to your fitness goals, however, charges you when you skip on your workouts! Now, my intent is not to get you into debt, however, it's a cool concept which enforces accountability. You sign up, commit to a number of workouts per week, then set how much money you will be charged if you skip a workout.

How does the app even know if I have skipped a workout? Well, you use the app’s ‘check-in’ feature when you arrive at your gym to validate your workout amongst other features.

How can they afford this? The cash rewards you get are funded by those who have failed to deliver on their promises for the week.

What else do they offer? They have 3 different pacts - gym pact, veggie pact and their food logging pact, so it’s not just for the average gym junky.